Outside, Thalanar and the elven warriors were working with the villagers, and the square that had once been so quiet was now bustling with frantic preparation. Strong branches were whittled down to make spears. Pits were dug and covered with leaves until the time came for firing. Old carts were dug out of the back of tumbledown sheds and pulled into barricades.
But tension was thick in the air, crackling like an oncoming storm. The elves moved gracefully and freely, but their body language communicated vigilance and suspicion. The villagers watched them with a combination of respect…and fear.
Dion was one of those villagers. His jaw was tight as he worked with his sister, Mira. She tried to defuse his indignation, but he had reached his boiling point.
"You shouldn't even be here," he hissed at an elven warrior in low, seething anger. "This is our home, not yours."
The elf—tall, stern, braided hair held in a warrior's knot—looked coldly down at him. "You think we want this? We are here because your enemies are now ours."
Dion's fists clenched tight. "My sister shouldn't have to live like this."
The elf stepped closer, placing his hand on the hilt of his blade.
But Faren was right there, his voice steady but unmistakably assertive. "Enough," he said. "We fight for the same thing; it is this village. If you leave here, the bandits will strike you down one at a time."
Dion exhaled in frustration, but he didn't say any more. He grabbed another armful of sticks and backed into the work.
Across the square, the same friction unfolded—as each elf and villager clashed, hardened resolve and pride crashing together at each breath. Yet, underneath it all, there was a swell of shared commitment: they would not perish without a fight.
In the comfort of the trees, the bandit scouts observed the village from all angles, noting every motion, every barricade.
They moved quickly upwind of the position they had detected report back to the bandit queen. She listened silently with blank eyes and calculated thoughts.
"Surround the village," she said at last. "We will take it from all sides."
Her lieutenants complied. And yet, even when they'd disappeared into the forest, a glint of something sad flickered in her eyes.
The white tiger… that boy…
She shook it off. "They bleed just like any other," she suppressed.
As darkness wore ahead, the bandits marched in formation again—as wolves circling a wounded deer. Thankfully the elves had worked the magic of the forest directly into the ground.
The first bandit stepped into a concealed pit, a sturdy wooden calamity impaling his leg. He screeched in what sounded like pain. A sound that seemed to send a shudder across the other bandits presence.
Another scout stumbled a vine snare, his feet yanked from beneath him; only to slam, face first, into the floor dirt.
Then—chaos.
The bandits roared and charged the barricades.
The village square erupted into noise and commotion, villagers shoving spears through every hole in the walls, elves who seemed to be shooting arrows from every alcove in the walls and screams of cries mixed and melted into one extended battle cry as night grasped tight hold around them.
At the edge of the village, Luenor stepped from the healer's hut, breath steady, eyes bright.
He felt it—the impending weight of what was to come.
I will not allow this to be another infraction, he thought, his hand tightening around the hilt of a borrowed sword.
The fight for Eclion had begun.
With the smell of burning herbs and sweat in the air of the healer's hut, Hunter struggled to breathe as he allowed the pain the healer, Eldarin, had caused him wash through him. Eldarin's practiced hands worked over the veins of mana that pulsed through Hunter's body and shone faintly.
"Breathe steady," Eldarin murmured, his forehead wet with perspiration, his glowing fingers working to steer the wild veins of mana back into place.
Luenor's knelt next to him placing his hands to Hunter's chest. He looked pale and his breaths were shallow as he attempted to draw in the wild, whipping mana that threatened to rip Hunter apart from the inside of his body.
Each pulse of energy refracted through Hunter's body and filled the hollow place inside of him with an overwhelming chaos of borrowed power.
On the other side of Hunter, Hera knelt, gripping Hunter's shoulders as his body jerked. "Stay down," Hera hissed, her teeth clenched tight, "You're not leaving us now."
Hunter's eyes drifted, and he let out a groan that slipped through his lips in a half-coherent sound, but before he could say anything, Eldaron ground a dab of green herb into paste with the mortar on the salve table and placed it against Hunter's lips.
"Breathe," the elf healer ordered in a state of urgency, "Sleep, warrior."
Hunter's body went slack and started to float under the effects of the herb. His eyes rolled back.
Outside, the woods seemed to be alive with battle sounds.
Arwin stood guard at the hut's door while the light faded, his sword reflecting the last threads of daylight. Here and there, a bandit broke through the outer lines, and Arwin met their face twisted in greed and hate with cold steel and gray flames in silence, clear of action, and exact.
At the very front of the village, the bandit queen—Mira—stood tall, hugging her black hair like a banner. Her eyes were chips of ice, staring at the line of elves and villagers, who stood shoulder to shoulder.
"Oh look at you," she said now, voice smooth and mocking. "Forest rats and dirt farmers, thinking you can defy the world."
She gestured to the fat vice leader beside her. "Tell them what's coming, Burizan."
Burizan shook as he raised his hand. "This is your end! The queen has promised your deaths!"
Faren's bowstring thrummed, an arrow flying through the air. It struck the man beside Burizan in the throat, injuring him entirely. Burizan's voice never finished.
Mira's eyes widened in slight surprise but she regained her smile that was cold enough to freeze in warm temperatures. She hefted her black iron spear, "Kill them all!"